August 10th

It's been a long journey home, but they've arrived at last. Greg puts Barbarella in park, shuts off the engine and glances at Roz. She looks back at him, tired but pleased. A week out from the surgery, and everything's gone the way it should. The incision's healed nicely. Even better, though he hasn't told anyone yet, he woke up a couple of nights ago to a strange feeling in his thigh, an odd sensation of activity—not an infection, he made sure of that; it was something he still can't explain but knows is supposed happen.

"Good to be home," Roz says, and leans in to kiss his cheek. "See you inside."

She doesn't take his bag—he's insisted he can carry his own stuff, even if it's early days yet. He looks around the neighborhood. It's the same as always, dead-end street, big shade trees, shabby but still genteel older frame houses, sidewalks in need of repair—but somehow it all feels bigger, more expansive.

Eventually he gets out of the car and grabs his duffel from the back, then heads into the house. Hellboy sits on the back step as he washes a hind leg. He sees Greg and watches him with that inscrutable look cats have used for their own purposes from time immemorial. "Hey," Greg says. The cat gets up and comes over, brushes against his leg in greeting before he moves to the screen door. "Yeah, okay." They go in together. "Give us five minutes before you start busting our chops for an early lunch, you furry little grifter."

"Greg?" Roz sounds strange.

He lets the screen door slap shut behind him and tosses the car keys in the basket. "Yeah?"

"Could you come here a minute please?"

Greg can't help but smile. He already knows what this is about. What do you know, Gunney pulled it off. I'll have to pick up some beer before I go over to the house. "What is it?" he yells back. "I gotta take a leak."

"Please." She's a little more insistent now. The smile gets bigger. He gives a long-suffering sigh and limps into the hallway.

"What?" he grumps.

"There's . . . there's a piano in our living room. A Steinway baby grand." She sounds stunned. Greg takes a moment to enjoy the fact that she said 'our living room' before he maneuvers around her and heads for the instrument.

"Hey, what do you know," he says in mock surprise, and sits on the bench. He lifts the cover, hits middle C with his thumb, tries a few octaves. It sounds good—the tuner was in too, that earns Gunney a whole case of beer—so he plays an arpeggio C chord. It's perfection. He indulges in another run, unwilling to admit he's missed his old friend terribly.

"This . . . this is the one from your place in Princeton, isn't it?" Roz hasn't moved from her place in the doorway.

"I don't think Santa Claus left it," he says, letting his hands wander over the keys. On impulse he calls up a memory: Mac Rebennack's version of 'Iko Iko'. The music flows from his mind down his arms and into his fingers. He adds a little flash while he plays, crunches the left hand riffs to make them boom and rumble under the bright melody. It's been so long, so long . . . Sound pours into the quiet living room, fills it up. He revels in it, the delight almost unbearable. It's like good sex, to make music with a keyboard. It heightens oxytocin levels and throws open the doors of his heart, the only time it ever feels safe to let that happen outside of orgasm. God, he's missed this! This music is in his blood, like a banked fire that waits for the rare moments when his attention isn't subsumed in everyday routines and demands.

Eventually he ends the song and sits there, fingers on the keys. He caresses the smooth ivory and thinks of Roz, but when he looks up she's gone. He frowns a little, surprised that she doesn't sit next to him. Most women love the piano. They love him while he plays too, the only time they ever do.

A quick search finds her in the bedroom. She empties the overnight bags and sorts out clean clothes from dirty. He stands in the doorway and watches her. Her movements aren't choppy, she doesn't throw things around, so she's not mad; the only indication something's not right is the way she won't look at him, though it's clear she knows he's there.

"Everyone's a critic," he says finally. Roz puts the last item of clothing in the hamper and sits on the bed. She still won't face him.

"You play just fine. You don't need me to tell you that," she says quietly. "You sounded great."

"What the fuck's wrong then?" he snaps. "You're acting like there's a dead cow full of maggots in the living room."

"Great mental image, thanks." She clasps her hands, lets them dangle between her knees. "It's not—not the piano . . ." She pauses. "I'm glad you have it."

"So what's the damn problem?" Now he's nervous. He's done something wrong, and doesn't know what it is—old and familiar territory.

Roz sighs a little. "You'll get mad when I tell you."

"Already there," he says, though that's not true. She bows her head.

"It's stupid," she says. He can barely hear her. "But everything's all . . . rearranged."

"Well, yeah," he says into the silence after this statement. "They had to make room for the piano. Kinda makes sense, don't you think?"

Roz nods. "I understand that. It's just . . ." She looks at her hands. "When I moved here, it took me a long time to . . . to find places for everything. To make it a home." She hunches her shoulders. "Now it's your living room."

This makes no sense whatsoever—all this angst over a few pieces of moved furniture. "You're an idiot," he says out loud.

"Maybe I am, but it would have been nice . . ." She takes a breath. "Things are different. And you didn't ask."

"Thought I lived here too," he shoots back.

"You do, you know this is your house now too, but—"

"Either it is or it isn't," he says loudly. After a moment she straightens, picks up the overnight bags and takes them to the closet. Greg watches her. She's still not overtly angry, but there's a wall between them—the one she puts up when she doesn't want to talk to him. After the week they've spent in Pittsburgh, after her support and closeness, this hurts like hell and worse yet, he's still not sure exactly what he did to cause this. Without another word he leaves her, goes out on the back porch and takes out his phone. When Sarah answers he says "I'm coming over."

Ten minutes later he sits in Sarah's kitchen, iced tea and plate of cookies at hand, and his shrink perched on a stool across from him. "Lay it on me," Sarah says.

"I had my piano brought up while we were gone," he says, and takes a cookie. "Now my old lady's giving me shit."

"What do you mean?" Sarah sips her tea. "Start from the beginning."

He tells her the facts. By the time he's done she's got a look on her face much like the one Roz wore.

"Let me get this straight," she says. "You didn't tell her anything about this and you rearranged the living room as well."

"So what?" He picks up the tea and wishes it was bourbon instead. "It isn't like I had the couch thrown out or broke a vase or something."

"Listen to that last sentence," Sarah says. "Think about it."

Greg rolls his eyes. "Great. Now I'm forced to ask my analyst to decode Womanese for me."

"I don't have to decode it. You need to figure this out for yourself or you won't believe anything I tell you." Sarah folds her arms. She looks a little militant, but amused as well.

"I don't know why the hell I bothered to come over here."

"Think about what you said," Sarah says. "'It isn't like I had the couch thrown out.'"

"Could have, you know." He munches the cookie and dusts crumbs from his fingers.

"Turn the situation around," Sarah suggests. "What if you were living at Baker Street and you came home one day to find everything rearranged and Roz's Shopsmith and tools sitting in the middle of the living room, with all your things in different places?"

He pauses in the middle of doing in another cookie. "She wouldn't."

"I'm not saying she would. This is hypothetical. How would you feel?"

"Come on," he scoffs. "That's not the situation."

"That's exactly the situation." Sarah is silent a moment. "You need to talk with Roz about this," she says. "If you do you'll understand why this distresses her so much."

He waits for her to go on, but she doesn't say any more. "Well?" he says finally. "Talk to her about what?"

"I can't tell you, it would be a violation of confidentiality."

Oh man, this has turned into a major fuckup and he still doesn't really understand why. That tight knot is back in his gut.

"Greg." Sarah's quiet voice pulls him out of his incipient panic. "It's all right. This is not divorce territory, okay? It's a misunderstanding. You can put this right. Talk to Roz."

"There's nothing to put right," he retorts, and dumps some of his anger on Sarah because he knows she can handle it. "Piano's here, moved a couch and a chair to make room for it, and now it's the end of the damn world as we know it." He gets to his feet. "I didn't sign up for this shinola."

"No one does," Sarah says. To his amazement she's amused. "You think Gene and I haven't had things like this happen? Sit." She shoos him back into his seat. "About a month after we moved in together I made the huge mistake of adding my CDs to his. I thought since we were a couple, it would be a good idea to consolidate." She sips her iced tea. "He didn't talk to me for a week. He had everything sorted and cross-indexed and a bunch of other craziness he didn't even bother to explain. We had quite the slanging match over that one. I think that was the only time I ever threw something at him."

Greg blinks. "Whoa."

Sarah smiles a little. "I'm sayin' this is one of those things that comes up when two people decide to live together. You need to work it out. The best way to do that is to talk to your wife. Find out why she's upset. I can guarantee it's not because she hates you." She tilts her head a little, her gaze bright with affection. "That's what you're really worried about, isn't it? That she'll push you away after all the closeness you had this past couple of weeks?"

He doesn't answer. Sarah reaches out and puts a hand on his arm, that butterfly touch he's come to actually enjoy. "Give your woman the chance to tell her side of things. I promise you it'll be worth it." She pats him gently. "Offer to take her out to dinner tonight when you're done. Or order in." She smiles at him. "Okay, pep talk's done. Go home and get busy, son."

It takes just a few minutes to return to the apartment. He enters the house to find it silent. A quick search reveals Roz in their bedroom. She's on the bed with her back to the door, but she's not asleep. When he comes in she lifts her head, then rolls over to face him. He stands in the doorway, afraid to get any closer. "I'd . . . I'd like to talk with you," she says softly. "It's okay, I'm not—not mad or anything."

Slowly Greg comes in. He watches her as he sits on the edge of the bed, rubs the scar on his thigh, an old reflex action. Deliberately he tucks his hands under his legs and waits as anxiety chews at him.

"I know you went to see Sarah." It's not an accusation, just a statement of fact. "She probably didn't tell you why I . . . got upset. She'd consider it a private conversation or something."

"Or something," he says, and winces a little at the harshness in his voice. "You gonna tell me or not?"

Roz slowly sits up, takes a deep breath and tucks a thick lock of hair behind her ear. She looks tired but determined. "Okay, it's like this. When I was a kid, when I still lived with my mom . . ." She stops. An expression passes over her angular features, something like sadness but not quite. "We—we moved around a lot. Mom would shack up with her latest man . . . It would last a week usually, sometimes as long as a month. Then we'd end up at Poppi and Nana's or Mom would find a place . . ." She looks down. Now Greg knows that look she wears. It's shame. "A lot of times I'd wake up in a strange room by myself. My toys and clothes would all be gone. Mom usually didn't feel like packing so she'd leave all my stuff behind or just throw it away. I'd have what I was wearing and any toy I'd taken to bed, and that was it." She draws an invisible pattern on the sheet with her finger, slow and careful. "It wasn't until I went to live with my grandparents that I got to keep things for more than a few days."

Now he gets it. He understands the need for permanency; as part of a career military family he'd moved more times than he can remember, and with every change came the unspoken longing for constancy, for a place that remained the same.

"The piano," he says. "That's my one thing, the thing that never changes." He wants to reach out for her hand but doesn't dare. Roz nods.

"The apartment is mine." She lifts her gaze to his. "I just . . . give me a little time to get used to it." She hesitates. "I would really appreciate it if—if you'd just ask me, or say something next time. Please."

"So no surprises at all," he says flatly.

"No, I don't mean that. Just . . . things that affect how we live here, I'd like you to ask first. I'll do the same," she says. It's not an ultimatum, which makes it easier for him to consider it and agree it's reasonable. He won't let her off the hook that easily though.

"I don't know," he says, and watches as her face darkens. "I say we make love while we think about it, and then we'll go out for dinner."

Her expression clears as she realizes he's dared to tease her a little. "I got something out of the freezer."

"We'll have it tomorrow." Greg reaches out and takes her hand. "You decide where we'll go. In the meantime, it's been a week."

"A week?" Roz sounds puzzled, but the slight spark of humor in her eyes belies her tone. He pulls her to him gently.

"You're wearing clothes. Have to fix that," he says, and starts to remove them.

An hour later they lie together, both enveloped in afterglow. The oscillating fan blows a cool breeze over them as sunlight slants through the window.

"I . . . made a mistake," he says eventually. He nuzzles her hair so he won't have to look her in the face. He rarely if ever admits his errors. If she laughs or gives him a hard time . . .

"Thanks." Roz strokes his side. She's quiet so long he thinks she's fallen asleep when she says "I'm sorry. I should have told you about how things were when I was a kid. It's . . . it just hurts to talk about it."

He nods, pleased that she was gracious and honest. He cups her breast in his hand, content to be right where he is.

It's much later, after they've returned from a late, leisurely dinner, that he sits at the piano. This feels familiar; all that's missing in the glass of bourbon. But things are different too. The pain that was once his constant companion is no longer. It hasn't gone away completely, he doubts it ever will truly leave him, but now it doesn't feel like some untamable force that lies in wait to destroy him. He plays a little, a few bits and pieces of melody and rhythm. When the song comes to him he smiles and lets it flow, rolls those boogie chords like gospel, slow and sweet and deep, and lets the tune sweep him away in its dark tide.

Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go . . .

After the song is done he gets to his feet and heads for the bedroom, where Roz waits as she brushes her hair or rubs lotion into her skin, or lies curled on her side while she reads with that intent expression he likes. When he reaches his destination he gives the piano a glance, glad of its presence. Then he turns off the light and goes into the bedroom, and closes the door behind him.

'Iko Iko', Dr. John

'Goodnight Sweetheart', James Booker